Before My Nose, No Trial Is Needed
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Blood was dripping from the mace of Metin, the heretical inquisitor.
The hulking man who had lunged at Metin lay sprawled on the ground, his face smeared with blood. As he clattered his mace loose from his fingers and finally came to his senses, Metin clicked his tongue inwardly.
Ugh, I lost my temper again.
His vision had gone red, and he'd nearly killed an innocent man for nothing. The people he was meant to kill were heretics and necromancers—not civilians.
Metin climbed on top of the fallen giant, seized his bloodied face, and channeled holy power.
Heal
Hmmm!
The giant's battered face rapidly knit itself back together. With his free hand, Metin pulled out his communication crystal and pressed it to his lips.
"This is Inquisitor Metin. Requesting all standby personnel to mobilize."
Static crackled for a moment, then a weary male voice came through.
"Now what? It's not even a working day today."
"A necromancer appears to have shown up. I caught the scent, clear as day."
"……"
More static, and then the man answered.
"Five men. We're sending them your way."
Buried in the endless sea of people, Simon had no idea what was happening around him. The streets were deafeningly loud, and places like this always had their share of drunken brawls breaking out.
Some fight somewhere again, he figured. Nothing to do with him.
I've got something to hide my face, now I need at least one set of traveling clothes.
With the mask purchased, Simon's next target was a robe.
The one he wore now was a completely nondescript brown thing he'd grabbed at random from home before leaving, and it had already faded and torn in places. He'd been planning to replace it with something decent while he was at it. He wanted to spend every last one of his twenty million Blanc on this trip—the currency would be useless once he went back anyway.
Simon looked around, then passed up the street stalls for a considerably large, upscale clothing shop. A plump shopkeeper greeted him with a beaming smile.
"I'm looking for a priest's robe. One with a hood, please."
At those words, the shopkeeper asked for identification. In the Holy Federation, with its rigid vertical caste system, priest's robes could only be purchased by full Priests.
Even buying clothes is regulated by rank. That'll take some getting used to.
After checking Simon's forged identification, the shopkeeper asked a few quick measurements, then went straight to the wardrobe and brought back a white robe.
Clean and simple, without any elaborate patterns. Since he'd be playing the part of an Apprentice Priest, having a white robe on hand didn't seem like a bad idea at all.
"And here's the best part of this robe! You can wear it inside out, like this!"
Flap!
When the shopkeeper flipped the robe over, it transformed into a rather stylish coat. The color was the same snowy white.
"And if you infuse it with just a touch of mana—"
She held a crystal in her hand and pressed it to the coat, and the entire garment shifted to a deep blue.
"See? The color changes too!"
"That's impressive."
A robe that changed color and could be worn inside out. This looked genuinely useful.
While the shopkeeper chattered away enthusiastically about the fabric quality, Simon casually pinched the hem of the coat and let a trickle of Jet-Black seep into it.
Oh.
Just as he'd suspected—the coat turned pitch black. A white robe on the inside, and a black coat when flipped. He was sold.
"I'll take this one."
It was a magical item, so the price stung a little, but Simon liked the garment. He paid two million Blanc, flipped the robe back to white, draped it over himself, and stepped outside with a satisfied spring in his step. He still had a comfortable eighteen million Blanc left.
Murmur, murmur, murmur.
But the atmosphere outside had turned strange. Simon slipped quickly back into the crowd. If something had kicked off, there was only one thing it could be.
"It's the heretical inquisitors!"
"Move! Get out of the way!"
Through the restless throng, a band of Priests was marching straight through the heart of the night market.
They carried or dragged behind them a nightmare parade of equipment—maces, crowns of thorns, torture wheels.
Their vacant eyes seemed steeped in a quiet menace, bloodstains splattered their white robes, and killing intent poured off their bodies. It looked as though a single touch would be enough for them to tear a man apart.
……Those are the heretical inquisitors?
To Simon's eyes, they looked like nothing more than a pack of blood-mad murderers.
They were already conducting their 'interrogations' on several people—openly stuffing victims into torture devices in front of the gathered crowd. The ones being interrogated shrieked with tearing screams.
"What are you, huh? What are you?"
An inquisitor with a snout jutting from his face like a newfangled beak interrogated a villager with a crown of thorns.
"You're a real heretic, aren't you? Aren't you?"
"N-no, I'm not, I've told you how many times—GAAAAAH!"
People who had witnessed the horrific scene began edging quietly backward. The inquisitors reacted to the movement with instant, hair-trigger sensitivity.
"Oh? Why are you running? Are you a heretic too?"
"Catch them. Catch. Catch."
The inquisitors summoned their divinity and leapt into the air, dropping down into the packed crowd. Screams of panic erupted all around.
"Don't interfere. Everyone face-down on the ground. Now."
"Over here. Get over here."
The snout-faced inquisitor finally hunted down a woman who'd tried to flee, seized her by the hair, and dragged her out of the crowd.
"I-I'm not a heretic! I'm a faithful of Rohen village! L-look, I even have my identification!"
Trembling and near tears, she held out her papers. The inquisitor gave them a lazy once-over, then promptly dropped them to the ground and crushed them under his shoe.
"Paper scraps. How do we trust paper, huh? We'll interrogate you our way."
"KYAAAAH! Somebody, please!"
She wailed and screamed, but the people around her averted their eyes and lay helplessly face-down on the ground.
This is……
Simon's fists clenched.
This isn't an interrogation.
It was a vicious theater of terror dressed up as heresy purification. He was beginning to understand exactly why the people of this country trembled at the mere sight of a Priest.
"Get in. Get in."
"No, please!"
The inquisitor pulled an enormous torture wheel out of a subspace pocket and shoved the woman against it, locking her arms and legs in place.
Once the wheel started turning, her whole body would be dragged across the jagged spikes mounted on its back.
Terror-stricken, she screamed until her voice cracked.
"Confess. Confess. You're a heretic, aren't you?"
"I-I-I have served the great Goddess since the day I was born! My parents were Clerics! Please!"
"Can't trust a word. You could be in disguise, can't you? Can't you?"
The inquisitor gripped the wheel.
"If your faith in the Goddess is truly sincere, you'll be able to endure this too. Right?"
"NOOO, please……!"
Simon gritted his teeth hard.
He was no fool, and he knew perfectly well that stepping out now and revealing himself would render everything he'd done worthless.
Don't get caught. I'll only get one chance at this.
Just as Simon carefully spread his fingers, preparing to raise a magic circle—
"Hey—"
The crowd began to part like the sea. Murmurs rippled through the masses like firecrackers going off.
"The hell do you lot think you're doing?"
Simon's eyes went round too. A girl in an Efnel uniform was striding straight toward the heretical inquisitors.
Lethe!
She glanced briefly toward Simon in the crowd, then flicked her fingers at him—a signal that said leave this to me.
The inquisitors flinched, visibly thrown by the sudden appearance of an Efnel student.
"Hey. You lot."
She said, her voice dark and low.
"You ignoring me now?"
"……"
Then one of the five inquisitors—a man wielding a spiked chain-scythe—shambled forward. He looked down at her, oozing undisguised disgust.
"We are executing official duty, Sister."
His lips parted, revealing teeth that jutted out like a monster's, jagged and crooked.
"Efnel or not, you have no authority to interfere with a heresy interrogation. If you'd kindly withdraw, we'll——"
THWACK!
Lethe kicked his legs out from under him. The moment the man staggered and dropped to one knee, her palm cracked across his cheek.
SLAP!
In a space packed with well over a thousand people, the sound of that slap rang out, raw and unmistakable.
"Get up, you turd."
"……"
The inquisitor's cheek burning red, he glared at Lethe with savage fury. The junior inquisitors behind him wore expressions less of anger than of pure horror, while the snout-faced one was snickering into his fist.
"That woman. Needs interrogating. Strip her, cage her, peel the skin right off her——"
"Shut your mouth already!"
A fellow inquisitor shrieked and smacked the back of his head.
Meanwhile, the Lead Inquisitor who'd taken the slap slowly pulled himself to his feet.
"Even the lofty Efnel's playing awfully reckless today, isn't it? Dragons, worms—everything's got its role in this world. So how about you let us do our job, hm?"
"And why would I be reckless?"
Lethe smirked and folded her arms.
"You lot. You're actually authorized for this jurisdiction, and this exact time slot for a heresy interrogation—are you?"
"……"
The Lead Inquisitor's expression stiffened slightly. Lethe rapped her fingers against the watch on her wrist.
"If it turns out you waltzed in here without a shred of approval from your superiors, tortured the local residents, and stirred up this whole mess, then we're going to have a very long conversation. Wouldn't you say?"
"……"
"Want me to pull every schedule on record, tear the whole thing open, and make your superiors grovel with their heads on the floor? Or do you want to tuck your tails and clear out right now?"
The Lead Inquisitor gritted his teeth.
A student brat who's nothing but a rank-and-file Priest except for the Efnel affiliation……
His eyes shifted. There were far too many witnesses to go on a rampage.
His pride stung, but withdrawing was the wiser move compared to taking any further action here and provoking Efnel.
"We're leaving."
The Lead Inquisitor said, turning his back. His juniors mumbled in confusion, but he brushed them off without listening.
"Release them all. We're pulling out."
Only then were the torture victims freed. The woman who'd been strapped to the wheel bowed her head toward Lethe again and again.
Lethe told her to take care of herself, then moved toward the others wounded by the torture to begin treating them.
By the way, where'd that guy run off to?
At the same moment, the Lead Inquisitor was entertaining a remarkably similar thought.
Where the hell is Metin, the bastard who called us here?
"Ghk!"
Simon, sprinting through a market alley, ducked his head just in time. Things like beast fangs came whistling past and slammed into the wall one after another.
"Found you! The source of the stenchhhhh!"
Out of nowhere, some lunatic was attacking him while screaming about a smell.
Simon bolted, and the madman came barreling after him, shoving and hurling people out of his path. What in the world kind of holy magic was this? He was conjuring fangs out of thin air and spraying them everywhere.
If this keeps up, only the innocent are going to get caught in it.
Simon broke out of the main street and ducked into a sparsely populated back alley.
"Haha! Given up on running, have you!"
WHAM!
The Priest overtook Simon in an instant and landed on the ground before him.
"I will judge you, necromancer!"
Simon drew a holy symbol across his chest with a pleasant smile and clasped his hands together.
"It seems there's been some misunderstanding. I am Ska Seraphino, an Apprentice Priest. And aren't you an inquisitor? Rather than attacking, perhaps you should begin with the interrogation itself——"
"Interrogation!"
Metin thrust both arms skyward. Simon's gaze followed upward.
At some point, a white magic circle had unfurled across the sky above his head.
Oh no!
"Before my 'nose,' no interrogation is ever required!"
Exorcism
RUUUMBLE!
A single bolt of divine lightning descended from the magic circle and struck Simon dead-on. His body was engulfed in light in an instant, erupting in a blinding explosion.
"KHAHAHA!"
Exorcism—the holy magic deadliest to necromancers. A direct hit would purify the Core and the body simultaneously in holy light.
"Another day's work done——"
But then Metin doubted his own eyes.
"——done?"
Suddenly a violent gust whipped through the alley, and the sole of a shoe was hurtling toward his face.
BOOOOOM!
Blood bursting from his nose, Metin went flying.
CRASH!
His body crashed into the garbage heap at the end of the alley. Simon landed lightly on the ground and brushed off his robe.
"I told you, didn't I. No necromancer here."